Thursday, February 27, 2014

The team is in a bit of turmoil, but a lot of us (the real fans) are still here. Its entirely possible that the team will have a rough season and come up short again. But we'll still be out there on Sundays rooting for our team.

Because, well, we care

The Wells report stung. No doubt about it. Does it fairly or unfairly paint the picture? Who can say? We're not in the locker room. Perhaps this kind of thing does happen in every locker room, as John Denny said. But you have to take anything he says with a grain of salt - he's s special teamer and those guys are crazy....

LACES OUT, DAN, LACES OUT!

(Oh, sorry)

Where was I? Oh yeah, maybe the NFL wants to bring change to locker rooms and the playing field and that's fine. As long as it's applied even-handedly to all teams. And they can continue to privately do what they want in the locker room.

Mark Schlerth called Joe Philbin an "imbecile" and I only know the guy from what I see in media sessions and hear about from the media reports. He might be. Two mediocre seasons make me wonder about his coaching ability, and the fact that he "didn't know" bothers me a bit. But maybe he can overcome it, if he lives up to his pledge to change.

But can you fairly judge him after next season when he's working with a slew of new players? I don't know. I guess we'll see. We'll be pulling for a quick turnaround and bringing the winning tradition back to Miami in either case.

Right now, we have as much chance to win the SuperBowl as anyone. And the draft looks promising. And maybe we can hang on to a few key free agents.

Yeah, things are in turmoil. But we still care....here's to being an optimist.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

No, it’s not a joke. You may have heard of sports professionals secretly taking steroids or being hooked on painkillers after
an injury. You are less likely to have heard of a more bizarre
phenomenon- sportspeople taking Viagra. Viagra is not on the list of
banned substances in sport and Viagra’s possible links to sporting
performance are more mysterious than is the case with other substances.
There have been studies on the effects of Viagra on sporting performance
in certain conditions.

What exactly does Viagra do?

What is Viagra’s effects on the body, you may ask. Viagra is
essentially a vasodilator. In plain English, the pill relaxes blood
vessels in the body, which enables high blood flow. It’s a popular
remedy for erectile dysfunction because of this property. Some
scientific studies have shown that Viagra can help boost the flow of
blood to the lungs. This can in turn be effective against pulmonary
arterial hypertension- a big barrier for sportspeople operating in
high-altitude environments.

Why would a sportsperson want to take Viagra?

In which sporting circumstances would Viagra be useful you may
ask? High altitude sports for one, because lungs have to do more work in
high-altitude due to the lower oxygen supply. For example,
mountaineers, skiers or cyclists travelling in the mountains or even
runners traversing difficult terrain. Some investigations have found
that Viagra in an environment where the oxygen supply is limited can
boost a person’s exercise capacity. For example, in 2004 a study
published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that Viagra boosted
exercise capacity for Mount Everest climbers.

This should not be misinterpreted as evidence that Viagra has been
proven to make athletes perform better outright; evidence merely
suggests that it can counter the effects of being in an environment
which would otherwise affect a given person’s performance. One study that appeared in 2006 in the Journal of Applied Physiology suggested
such a conclusion. Some participants bettered their performances by
almost 40 percent during 10-kilometer cycling trials at 12,700 feet, but
no real impact was detected at sea level. It is not clear whether there
has been equal scientific interest in investigating whether drugs other
than Viagra used to treat erectile dysfunction- such as Stendra- might
also be proving popular with some athletes. Nonetheless, whether it’s
Viagra or Stendra, it is clear that getting one’s hand on the drug need
not be difficult. As Kwikmed.org explain, Stendra, for example “ is available on prescription in the United States through Physicians or through licensed sellers”.

Some athletes could also be taking Viagra for another reason. According
to certain experts, one of the potential side effects of taking steroids
is impotence. This is because people using steroids over a long period
of time may suffer from impotence when they come off steroids- as
steroids prevent the body from producing its own testosterone and
sometimes even when a person stops taking steroids, their body does not
go back to producing testosterone itself. This is yet another example of
how damaging steroids can be to athletes and their health, and further
evidence that pure hard work a rigorous, balanced exercise regime should be a professional sportsperson's key weapons instead, according to Fitness USA.

Suspicion hots up

Interest in Viagra as a potential source of unfair competition in
sport has increased in recent years. In 2007, Andrea Moletta, a cyclist
was prevented from participating in the Tour of Italy after 82 Viagra
tablets were uncovered in his father’s car, according to media reports-
although Moletta was not accused officially of doping following the
incident. In 2008, the World Anti-Doping Agency carried out a study to
find out whether Viagra does lead to unfair competition. It has not,
however, yet added it to its blacklist of substances banned in sport. In
2008, the Agency said in a statement: “As regards sildenafil [Viagra],
WADA is aware of studies presented in relation to the potential of
sildenafil to restore pulmonary capacities at very high altitudes. WADA
is currently funding a number of research projects on the effects of
sildenafil at various altitudes. These projects are ongoing.”

What about viagra and American football, you may ask? It seems
highly unlikely that our American football icons are secretly putting
away diamond-shaped blue pills to enhance their performance on the
pitch. This is due to the pretty obvious fact that football is not
played at high-altitudes- so more efficient supply of blood to the lungs
doesn’t deliver much of an advantage.